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Friday, June 06, 2014

We never forgot Jerusalem

There are moments that make Jerusalem feel like no other place on earth;
when you feel yourself lifted beyond time and space and embraced, as
it were, by zreut olam, the arms of eternity.

There is no other place in the world where this happens. I want to share with you three epiphanies that changed my life.

The first took place in 1969. I had come to study in Israel following
the completion of my first degree, and was standing on the newly
rebuilt Hebrew University campus on Mount Scopus as the sun began to
set, bathing the whole landscape in a divine radiance.

As I found myself looking down on the Temple Mount, I recalled the famous story at the end of Masechet Makot, where
Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues are looking down at the ruins of the
Temple and see a fox walking through the place that was once the Holy
of Holies. As the rabbis wept, Rabbi Akiva smiled and laughed, and when
asked how he could, Rabbi Akiva retold the two interlinked prophecies
of Uriah – who foresaw the day when Jerusalem would be ruined – and
Zachariah – who saw the day it would be rebuilt.

Said Rabbi Akiva, until he saw the first prophecy fulfilled, he was not
sure the second would be. Now he had seen the first prophecy
fulfilled, he knew the second would one day also come true.

I remember standing at almost that exact spot and being overwhelmed with emotion.

For almost 2,000 years, Jews had waited for that moment, and ours was
the generation that lived to see Jerusalem reunited and rebuilt. We saw
the realization of Zachariah’s prophecy 24 centuries ago.

We had lived to see in person what our greatest prophets could only see in a vision.

And I was struck by a question.

If only Rabbi Akiva had known how long it would take, would he still
have believed? Rabbi Akiva, a supporter of Bar Kokhba, thought the
rebellion would succeed and believed that the Temple would be rebuilt
in his lifetime. If Rabbi Akiva had seen the devastation, persecution
and hatred that occurred as a result of the rebellion and after, would
he have still believed? The answer is of course he would, because that
is what Jews did all through the generations.

No people ever loved a city more. We saw Jerusalem destroyed twice,
besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and yet in all
those years, wherever Jews lived they never ceased to pray about
Jerusalem, face Jerusalem, speak the language of Jerusalem, remember it
at every wedding, in every home they built, and at the high points of
the Jewish year.

I ask myself how could Jews believe so much in a city they had been
exiled from for so long? The answer, of course, is very powerful and is
contained in two words in the story of Jacob. Recall, the brothers
return home and show Jacob the blood-stained coat of Joseph. Realizing
Joseph has gone, Jacob weeps, and when the brothers move to comfort him
we are told, Veyimaein lehitnachen, Jacob “refused to be
comforted.” Why? There are, after all, laws in Judaism about the limits
of grief; there is no such thing as a bereavement for which grief is
endless. The answer is that Jacob had not yet given up hope that Joseph
was still alive. To refuse to be comforted is to refuse to give up
hope.

That is what Jews did with Jerusalem. They remembered the promise that Am Yisrael had made by the waters of Babylon, Im eshkachech Yerushalayim tishkach yemini,
“If I forget Jerusalem, may my right had lose it’s cunning.” We never
forgot Jerusalem. We were never comforted. We never gave up hope that
one day we would return and because of that Jews never felt separated
from Jerusalem.

And when it happened, in 1967, my Jewish identity was transformed when
the world heard, “Har habayit beyadeinu,” “The Temple Mount is in our
hands.” Those three words changed a generation. That was my first
epiphany: That no love was ever as strong as between the Jews and
Jerusalem.

MY SECOND epiphany happened just a few days ago on Jerusalem Day.
Standing on the streets of the city, I watched as youngsters from around
the world, waving Israeli flags, sing and dance with a joy that was
overwhelming. As I watched the celebrations, I was overcome with emotion
because suddenly I had a vision of the 1.5 million children who were
killed in the Shoah not because of anything they had done, not because
of anything their parents had done, but because their grandparents
happened to be Jews.

I remembered how 26 centuries ago, the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of
the Jewish people reduced to a valley of dry bones. God asked shall
these bones live, and Ezekiel saw them come together, take on flesh,
and begin to breathe and live again. God promised Ezekiel he would open
his peoples’ graves and bring them back to the land.

I remembered the first reference to Israel outside the Bible on the Merneptah Stele,
a block of granite engraved by Merneptah IV, successor to Ramses II,
thought by many to have been the Egyptian pharoah at the time of the
Exodus.

It was an obituary, Israel is laid waste, her seed is no more.

I thought how some of the greatest empires the world has ever known –
Egypt of the pharoahs, Assyria, Babylon, the Alexandrian Empire, the
Roman Empire, the medieval empires of Christianity and Islam all the
way to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union – were the superpowers of
their day that bestrode the narrow world like a colossus, seemingly
invulnerable in their time. And yet each tried to write the obituary of
the Jewish people, and whilst they have been consigned to history, our
people can still stand and sing Am Yisrael Chai. That was my second
epiphany: The knowledge that what I was seeing on that day in Jerusalem
was Techiyat hamaiyim, a collective people being bought back from
death to life.

MY THIRD epiphany happened in early 1991. Having come to Israel prior
to becoming chief rabbi, Elaine and I found ourselves in the middle of
the First Gulf War. Towards the end of the war, one late Shabbat
afternoon we were staying in Yemin Moshe when we heard beautiful music
coming from one of the houses a few doors away. We went to see what was
happening and found a group of Romanian Jews – a choir – who had just
made aliya that week. Soon it seemed as though all the residents of
Yemin Moshe had been drawn to the sound, people who had come to
Jerusalem from all four corners of the world: America, Canada,
Australia, South Africa, Eastern Europe and Arab lands.

Twenty-six centuries ago, the prophet Jeremiah said that a time would
come when we would not thank God for bringing us out of the land of
Egypt, but rather for bringing our people together from all the lands
of the earth. This, second exodus, Jeremiah described, would be even
more miraculous than the first. We lived to see this day, when Jews
from 103 countries speaking 82 languages came to Israel to build not
just their lives but the Jewish homeland. After generations it was
Jerusalem that bought Jews together from all over the world as one
people, in one voice, singing one song.

So long as Jews remembered Jerusalem, we knew we were still on a
journey, one in which the Jewish people has been on ever since the
first syllables of recorded time: “Lech lecha m’artzech u’mimoladecha u’mibeit avicha,”
(“Leave your land, your birthplace and your father’s house”). That is
what every one of those people in Yemin Moshe that afternoon had done.

That was my third epiphany: Never has a city had such power over a people’s imagination.

Never did God love a people more and never were a people more loyal
than our ancestors who endured 20 centuries of exile and persecution so
that their children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren could come
home to Jerusalem, Ir hakodesh (the holy city), the home of the Jewish heart.

As we stand here today and see a place of such beauty it takes your
breath away. Jerusalem is the place where all the prayers of all the
Jews across all the centuries and from all the continents meet and take
flight on their way to heaven. It is the place where you feel brushed
by the wings of the Shechina.

We have had the privilege to be born in a generation that has seen
Jerusalem reunited and rebuilt. We have seen the Jewish people come
home.

Therefore, whilst this may be an individual award, God is calling on us
all to be Guardians of Zion. Never has this been more important. We
must all stand up for the one home our people has ever known and the
one city our people has loved more than any other. We are all shagrirey medinat Yisrael (ambassadors
for the State of Israel) and we must all make Israel’s case in a world
that sometimes fails to see the beauty we know is here. Let us all take
on that task. With Hashem’s help, we will succeed and we pray may the
world make its peace with Israel so that Israel and Israel’s God can
bring peace to the world. Bimhera beyamainu. Amen.
This op-ed is an edited version of Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ speech on
receiving The Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University’s
Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at The King David Hotel
on Monday evening.

Caroline Glick & Mark Levin: The Israeli Solution -- A One-State Pla

Why Israel Opposes International Forces in the Jordan Valley

U.S. scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel

Yet another indication of the absolute corruption of American academia today. "US scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel," from the Jerusalem Post, December 16: NEW YORK – The 5,000-member American Studies Association (ASA), which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to...http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/12/us-scholars-group-votes-in-favor-of-academic-boycott-of-israel.html

Israel Living Prophecy

A senior New Israel Fund officer told a U.S. official in 2010 that the disappearance of the Jewish state would not be a tragedy, according to a document that was leaked by Wikileaks...She commented that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.

Mideast expert Michael Widlanski: Fatah is a joke

US-Israeli talks focus on Ahmadinejad's possible ouster

How to exploit the deep cracks forming in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration for removing the Iranian president was a top item on the agenda of the high-level talks between Barack Obama's advisers and Israeli officials at Mossad headquarters in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, Wednesday, July 29.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that Ahmadinejad's cabinet is falling apart; of his original lineup of 21 ministers, only nine remain at their posts.

The Identity Of The Land

Why the Palestinians need to recognize the Jewish State

We do NOT support a 2-state solution

A January 2009 poll found that Americans oppose creating a Palestinian state by 45-31 percent. A February 2009 Maagar Mohot Survey Institute poll has also shown that Israelis oppose creating a Palestinian state by 51-32 percent.

Many other polls tell a similar story.

These figures suggest that Americans and Israelis have understood that creating a Palestinian state under current conditions will not bring peace but merely another terror state.

Netanya,Israel

Jerusalem At Night

Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

Children of Hamas

Picture of Hamas children the media does not show you

IDF: Civilian Deaths in Gaza Less than 25% of Total

A maximum of 25% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli operation are innocent civilians, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), Col. Moshe Levi, said Wednesday. According to Palestinian medical officials, Israel has killed some 1,000 Palestinians and more than half of them are civilians. Levi said the CLA had compiled a list with the names of 900 Palestinians killed during the fighting. He said that 150 names were of women, children and elderly, and that the maximum number of civilians killed so far was 250. Levi also dismissed claims that 43 Palestinians were killed in an IDF attack on a Hamas terror cell that was firing mortars at Israeli forces from within an UNRWA school in Jabalya. Levi said 21 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including a number of Hamas operatives. (Jerusalem Post)

Hamas teaching the children of Gaza

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009] Thanks PMW

Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]Thanks Israel Project

It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917Dear Lord Rothschild,I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate theachievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities inPalestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,Arthur James Balfour[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Favorite Books

While Europe Slept

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil - in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms which amount to an area of about 12 square miles.

It would be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject.

Information worth Possessing

"Israel gave the Palestinians an autonomy in 42% of the West Bank and Gaza after the Oslo accords in the early 90's. Over 92% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza were then under the administration of the Palestinian Authority and its Chairman Yasser Arafat.

"Israel is surrounded by 10 hostile Arab countries who do not even recognize its right to exist ( Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Lybia, Morocco, Tunisia, Aden) and Iran"